my track plan calls for 6 right hand turnouts with a radius for curve of about 3 ft (6ft diameter) but turnouts with that geometry are hard to come by so i decided i am going to make my own with aluminum bar but im not sure how to go about it can somebody give me some pointers
How does one go about making custom turnouts
NorthwestGarrattGuy
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You never know Greg, it might be fine.
I'm sure that he will not be running huge long heavy trains like you do, especially with that radius.
The great thing is that if there is wear, he can just print another part.
Cheers,
David Leech, Canada
I'm sure that he will not be running huge long heavy trains like you do, especially with that radius.
The great thing is that if there is wear, he can just print another part.
Cheers,
David Leech, Canada
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Actually, it's the tight radius / frog number that will cause that wear. Yes, that's the reason I suggested making the frog itself separate from the rest of the turnout "bed", just like Aristo did on it's "wide radius" switches. In their case, they were able to improve the turnout with the replacement part.
Greg
Greg
Currently Building a Layout and experimenting with 3D printed kits and scratch built freight cars
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yeah im not gonna be running much more than 5 cars
also i would prefer she or they pronouns
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Sorry, thanks for correcting us.
I will try to remember in the future.
Cheers,
David leech, Canada
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Since your screen name ends in "guy", perhaps changing that would help?... or even a real name so no pronouns are needed?
Again the curvature of the turnout will work against you, and the plastic being much softer will also work against you. But let's see some turnouts and how it goes!
Again the curvature of the turnout will work against you, and the plastic being much softer will also work against you. But let's see some turnouts and how it goes!
Currently Building a Layout and experimenting with 3D printed kits and scratch built freight cars
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yeah im gonna work on them at some point but i need to buy some more aluminum and get soem tools set up
I've gotten the hang of that templot program, at least as far as making a turnout of various scales and having the Tie spacing right for the line. The program does put necessary ties in the right spot regardless of the neighboring tie placement. If you wanted to tell me specifics of your desired scale, I can generate a better template. Unless you desired G1 standard, in which case that's what I supplied before.
If you have a rail bender, that will serve you well for making the constant radius. I have a Sunset Valley single rail bender and am very happy with it.
Personally I'll probably file and solder brass rail into frogs when I get to building my turnouts.
If you have a rail bender, that will serve you well for making the constant radius. I have a Sunset Valley single rail bender and am very happy with it.
Personally I'll probably file and solder brass rail into frogs when I get to building my turnouts.
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You might consider using nickel silver for the frogs also, looks a bit more realistic and can be soldered too.
Besides appearance, is there a benefit to nickel silver over brass? Easier to work with? Better life?
I have brass on hand and the rest of my layout is brass. I also run dead rail steam so conductivity doesn't matter to me.
I have brass on hand and the rest of my layout is brass. I also run dead rail steam so conductivity doesn't matter to me.
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Well, supposedly nickel silver has less oxidation, or that the "oxidation is conductive", which of course is only of interest to track power people.
Soldering is slightly more difficult than brass, but only slightly.
Better life? It seems that NS will wear more slowly, but I have never seen a real test, and there are all different grades of brass, LGB, USAT, Aristo are all slightly different in composition.
For me it would be down to appearance, I would say NS is closest to approximating steel, although the deep brown of oxidized LGB rail is sort of close to rusted iron. Brass rail always looked toylike to me compared to the prototype.
Greg
Soldering is slightly more difficult than brass, but only slightly.
Better life? It seems that NS will wear more slowly, but I have never seen a real test, and there are all different grades of brass, LGB, USAT, Aristo are all slightly different in composition.
For me it would be down to appearance, I would say NS is closest to approximating steel, although the deep brown of oxidized LGB rail is sort of close to rusted iron. Brass rail always looked toylike to me compared to the prototype.
Greg
Currently Building a Layout and experimenting with 3D printed kits and scratch built freight cars
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i have no need for metal frogs plastic frogs will suffice and i don't might needing to replace them every so often
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I was replying to Tdreabe's post, I know you want plastic, that's why I suggested making the frogs separate
Currently Building a Layout and experimenting with 3D printed kits and scratch built freight cars
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speaking of plastic the main reason is because i will always try to make something in CAD and print it if i need accurate geometry in a smaller part
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The wear in frogs, if the turnout is well made as described in my post, does not happen in the frog nose but in the two stock rails right after where they narrowly meet, that is where the wheels drop into the frog (if you use G1MRA standards instead of fine scale where this should not happen) You can see the wear on the lower stock rail. And it can be fixed by cutting the stock rails, bending new ones and replacing.
![Image]()
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EXACTLY!
Unfortunately, it's almost impossible to stop the wheels from dropping into the throat of the frog in high numbered switch, below is a #6 Aristo... also poorly designed frogs with bad geometry (this is a guard rail width problem) will wear on the "other side" of the point of frog.
![Image]()
Unfortunately, it's almost impossible to stop the wheels from dropping into the throat of the frog in high numbered switch, below is a #6 Aristo... also poorly designed frogs with bad geometry (this is a guard rail width problem) will wear on the "other side" of the point of frog.
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I have been testing a method inspired by the frogs on two crossings made by Hübner which I installed. It consists of glueing with epoxy small pieces of 2mm thick brass right where the wheel drops, as most of my stock has flanges between 1,3mm to 2mm deep this fills the bottom of the frog to just 2mm deep. And prevents most wheel drops, scale flanges only drop a few tenth of a mm which is much less than the usual. So far it works fine of course one cannot use coarse scale stuff like ex Basset Lowke equipment, but frankly who cares? Here is an installation on commercial (Tenmille flat Bottom turnout) I glued with epoxy so that it is reversible, I can always pry them off, but do not think that I
![Image]()
will, instead I will now equip the rest of my frogs this way, train operation is much smoother. I am much anoyed with my friend Chris Ludlow at the ugly shifting about when equipment goes over a frog, which unlike real equipment which weighs tons and has soft springing gives away that it is a model.
cheers,
du-bousquetaire the frog!
![Image]()
will, instead I will now equip the rest of my frogs this way, train operation is much smoother. I am much anoyed with my friend Chris Ludlow at the ugly shifting about when equipment goes over a frog, which unlike real equipment which weighs tons and has soft springing gives away that it is a model.
cheers,
du-bousquetaire the frog!
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Yes, both Aristo-Craft and Train-Li here in the US made inserts specifically for the Aristo #6, basically you are making the frog into a "flange bearing" frog to a small degree.
![Image]()
![Image]()
This was all hashed out maybe 10 years ago in the US (perhaps earlier)
This was all hashed out maybe 10 years ago in the US (perhaps earlier)
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I put a piece of brass in the frog throat on my larger radius curved turnouts and it does do a good job preventing wheels dropping in and causing a big hop. I don't have this issue with my tangent frog castings (#4-10) but when making up a soldered rail frog on the custom stuff, I tend to err on a little extra room for the wheel sets to pass through the throat, so those brass inserts are a big help.
Nice work on customizing the turnouts!
-Mike
Nice work on customizing the turnouts!
-Mike
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Hi there!
The reason I glued this shim with epoxy, is that it originaly was an experiment which I wanted to be able to remove if it didn't prove very reliable. As it proved to be very reliable and efficient in reducing wheel drop, I will do them on my outer line (So far I only equiped my inner line) and probably solder them in place with the rest of the built up frog.
This really does supress the jogle that equipment had going through pointwork which I thought was visually a give away that this was not the real thing as real trains move differently, because of their weight through these kinds of trackwork.
Large radius turnouts have a much longer slot where wheels can drop into and are more of a problem, however I did have to rebuild one frog on a N° 8 point because of rail wear. As shown on a previous post. In the GIMRA Newsletter Dick Moger also fixed this problem by rebuilding a worn out frog.
Cheers, Simon
The reason I glued this shim with epoxy, is that it originaly was an experiment which I wanted to be able to remove if it didn't prove very reliable. As it proved to be very reliable and efficient in reducing wheel drop, I will do them on my outer line (So far I only equiped my inner line) and probably solder them in place with the rest of the built up frog.
This really does supress the jogle that equipment had going through pointwork which I thought was visually a give away that this was not the real thing as real trains move differently, because of their weight through these kinds of trackwork.
Large radius turnouts have a much longer slot where wheels can drop into and are more of a problem, however I did have to rebuild one frog on a N° 8 point because of rail wear. As shown on a previous post. In the GIMRA Newsletter Dick Moger also fixed this problem by rebuilding a worn out frog.
Cheers, Simon
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By the way Bill, I would have loved to save myself the trouble and hard work of building all this trackwork with your products, unfortunatly the price of shipping these to France + customs was prohibitive. I really dig your track products.
Best, Simon
Best, Simon
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